A Labour supporter who heckled Jeremy Corbyn at a Labour Friends of Israel reception has explained his reasons for shouting at the party leader.

Michael Foster, a Jewish donor who stood as a Labour candidate in the general election, said he had been unable to understand how Mr Corbyn could speak for eight minutes at the event without using the word “Israel”.

As Mr Corbyn moved away from the microphone at the LFI reception in Brighton on Tuesday evening, Mr Foster shouted: “Say the word Israel, say the word Israel.”

A former showbusiness agent who is one of the party’s leading donors having given more than £400,000 since 2010, Mr Foster told the Times: “I find it difficult to understand how the leader of the British Labour party, when he has spent the conference talking about decency, respect for human values and human rights, kindness and a new way of conducting politics, can appear on a platform in front of 250 or 300 Jewish people . . . and cannot find in his lexicon of words at that meeting, the word ‘Jew’, ‘Jewish’, ‘the UK Jewish community’ or the word ‘Israel’. That is not leadership.”

Watch Jeremy Corbyn getting heckled at LFI event

Mr Foster, who lost eight relations in the Holocaust and whose grandfather was in Dachau, said he had spoken to Mr Corbyn at Labour’s gala dinner ahead of the LFI reception.

In May’s general election, Mr Foster failed to take the Cornish constituency of Camborne and Redruth from the Conservatives.

Mr Corbyn, a long-standing critic of Israel, was warmly welcomed to the LFI event when introduced by group chair Joan Ryan MP, with activists cheering his name.

Mr Foster did not respond to the JC’s requests for a comment on Wednesday.